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Good environment

OSU, Columbus are at center of global summit of top ecology experts

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The focus of the world’s top environmental-sustainability scientists and thinkers is in Columbus
this week, as Ohio State University and the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission help host
EcoSummit 2012, a gathering of more than 1,500 people from 75 countries. The event began Sunday and
continues through Friday.

Why Columbus? Previous EcoSummits were held in Copenhagen in 1996, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in
2000 and Beijing in 2007.

Credit the leadership of OSU, especially world-renowned wetlands ecologist Bill Mitsch, the
event’s chairman, for making central Ohio’s attractions evident to planners of the event.

Mitsch, whose pioneering work as a founder in the field of ecological engineering includes
development of the Olentangy River Wetland Research Park, is among a stellar field of scientists
who will appear at EcoSummit.

They include Pulitzer Prize-winning author E.O. Wilson, considered the father of sociobiology,
which studies how behavior is influenced by genetics as well as environment. In Columbus, he is
expected to discuss the importance of the Appalachian forest, which he has described as the
second-most-diverse ecosystem on the planet, next to the Amazon rainforest.

Also appearing is Jared Diamond, whose popular books
Collapse and
Germs, Guns and Steel examined the role ecology — as opposed to culture — plays in the
success or failure of societies.

Much of Ohio’s ecological work will be on display; one field trip will show off Ohio State’s
Stone Lab facility on Lake Erie’s Gibraltar Island, and focus on the Great Lakes’ remarkable
comeback from pollution in recent decades.

The event also will note the 50 {+t}{+h} anniversary this year of the publication of Rachel
Carson’s
Silent Spring, a seminal work of the environmental movement.

The nitty-gritty of the conference isn’t for the casually interested; they’ll be discussing
topics such as “Applying an analytical framework for sustainability science across contrasting
biophysical, cultural, and institutional contexts.”

But the real object — finding ways to preserve, manage and restore the ecosystems on which the
earth’s population depends — ultimately matters to everyone.